On Wednesday 29 November 2017, Professor Timothy Garton Ash delivered the fifth annual Cara ‘Science and Civilisation’ lecture, to a capacity audience in the Dining Room of the Royal Society. Drawing on his new book, ‘Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World‘, and the 13-language Oxford University website www.freespeechdebate.com, Professor Garton Ash developed the ideas set out in his advance synopsis, with particular regard to the situation in universities:

“Free speech is the lifeblood of an open society. It is vital to good government, the pursuit of knowledge, self-expression and living with diversity. The conditions for free speech have been transformed by the internet and mass migration, creating a world in which we are all becoming neighbours. Yet authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia are pushing back against free speech quite effectively and populist governments which claim to be democratic are eroding it in more subtle ways.”

To follow his lecture, first click here to open the audio recording (opens in a separate tab), then return to this tab and click here to see his lecture slides.

The ‘Science and Civilisation’ lecture series takes its name from the title of lecture given by Albert Einstein in October 1933 at the Royal Albert Hall, at a major fundraising event on behalf of Cara and three other organisations who had come together as the ‘Refugee Assistance Fund’ to help those being expelled from Germany by the Nazis.